Saved    by    Antitoxin  I 


Which  Shall  Live — 


Men  or  Animals? 


Reprinted    from    Hygeia,    October,    192: 


Copyright,  1923 
American  Medical   Association, 
535  N.  Dearborn   St.,   Chicago 


WHICH   SHALL  LIVE— MEN   OR   ANIMALS? 


ERNEST     HAROLD     BAYNES 


F  the  United  States  were  threatened 
with  invasion  by  a  foreign  power, 
even  if  we  knew  that  the  invasion 
would  be  only  temporary  and  that 
only  a  few  thousand  of  our  citizens 
would  be  killed,  the  whole  country 
would  be  aroused  in  an  effort  to  prevent  that 
invasion.  If  necessary,  millions  of  men  would 
be  drafted  and  trained  to  meet  the  invaders 
and  billions  of  dollars  would  be  expended  to 
protect  those  few  thousand  people  from  the 
death  that  must  otherwise  overtake  them.  In 
such  a  case,  every  real  man  and  every  real 
woman  in  the  country  would  be  doing  some- 
thing to  insure  the  defeat  of  that  invading 
army.  Yet  such  an  army  is  like  a  box  of  tin 
soldiers  compared  with  armies  that  threaten 
us  all  the  tiine,  but  which  cause  scarcely  an 
extra  beat  of  the  nation's  pulse.  I  refer  to  the 
armies  of  disease.  The  army  of  bubonic 
plague  alone,  if  permitted  to  effect  a  foothold 
on  our  shores,  might  at  any  time  ravage  our 
cities  as  it  once  ravaged  the  cities  of  Europe 
and  Asia,  leaving  scarcely  enough  living  to 
bury  the  dead.  We  read  in  DeFoe's  "History 
of  the  Plague"  in  London  in  1665  of  "people 
in  the  rage  of  their  distemper  or  in  the  tor- 


ment  of  their  swellings,  which  were  indeed 
intolerable,  running  out  of  their  own  govern- 
ment, raving  and  distracted,  and  often  times 
laying  violent  hands  upon  themselves,  throw- 
ing themselves  out  of  windows,  shooting  them- 
selves, mothers  murdering  their  own  children 
in  their  lunacy."  Indeed,  we  do  not  have  to 
go  back  so  far  to  realize  what  the  plague  can 
do.  In  1905  in  India  alone  there  were 
1,040,429   deaths  from   this   one    disease. 

The  Conquest  of  Bubonic  Plague 

In  this  country  no  layman  loses  any  sleep 
on  account  of  bubonic  plague.  Is  that  because 
it  does  not  exist?  Not  at  all.  It  comes  to  our 
waters,  even  effects  a  landing  sometimes.  But 
we  have  a  small  garrison  of  vigilant  medical 
men  on  our  coasts  watching  day  and  night 
for  that  enemy,  ready  to  give  him  instant 
combat  if  he  comes.  We  sleep  in  peace 
because  we  trust  that  garrison.  Thirty  years 
ago  we  did  not  know  what  caused  this  terrible 
plague,  but  in  1894  the  germ  (Bacillus  pestis 
hiihonitae)  was  discovered.  Even  then  it  was 
not  known  how  the  disease  was  carried  or 
what  caused  it  to  spread  so  rapidly — and 
before  it  could  be  combated  successfully,  that 
must  be  known.  A  series  of  experiments  on 
living  animals,  chiefly  rats,  guinea-pigs  and 
monkeys,  yielded  the  desired  information  and 
through  these  experiments  we  have  been 
delivered  from  this  terrible  scourge.  It  was 
known  that  rats  were  subject  to  plague;  conse- 


quently  attempts  were  made  to  find  out  how 
it  was  transmitted  from  one  rat  to  another. 
The  idea  that  it  might  be  carried  by  parasites 
occurred  to  several  investigators.  Accordingly, 
healthy  rats  were  placed  in  cages  close  to 
diseased  rats;  they  remained  perfectly  well 
until  a  few  fleas  were  introduced.  Then, 
almost  immediately,  the  hitherto  healthy  rats 
were  stricken  with  j^lague.  Cages  containing 
healthy  monkeys  were  suspended  over  cages 
occupied  by  diseased  and  flea-infested  rats. 
At  regular  intervals  the  monkeys  were  lowered 
nearer  to  the  stricken  rodents.  The  monkeys 
were  all  right  until  they  were  brought  within 
jumping  distance  of  a  flea,  when  they  at 
once  contracted  the  plague.  These  and  other 
experiments  left  no  doubt  that  rat  fleas  were 
the  carriers  among  animals,  and  since  rat  fleas 
also  feed  on  man  when  their  natural  prey  is 
not  available,  it  was  an  easy  matter  to  show 
that  the  plague  is  spread  by  means  of  rat 
fleas.  This  led  to  a  definite  program  for 
checking  the  spread  of  the  disease,  by  relent- 
less warfare  on  fleas  and  the  rats  that  carried 
them.  The  rats  were  trapped,  their  breeding 
places  destroyed,  and  diseased  rats  from 
infested  ports  were  prevented  from  entering 
the  country.  For  example,  when  it  was  found 
that  rats  frequently  come  ashore  along  the 
cables  stretched  between  the  ships  and  the 
wharves,  metal  cones  similar  to  those  used  to 
prevent  rodents  from  climbing  into  corn  cribs 
were    placed    on    the    cables.      The    fact    that 


I  wish  to  emphasize  is  that  it  is  due  to  experi- 
ments on  living  mammals  that  this  black 
death  is  no  longer  a  terror  to  us. 

Experimental  Study  of  Health  and  Disease 

Until  the  middle  of  the  last  century  very 
little  had  been  done  in  the  way  of  experi- 
mental study  of  physiology  and  pathology. 
Physicians  depended  almost  entirely  on  bed- 
side observations.  Some  of  these  physicians 
were  wonderful  men,  and  often  their  obser- 
vations were  remarkably  shrewd.  But  the 
human  body  is  a  complex  machine,  the  organs 
are  so  interdependent,  that  in  the  presence  of 
any  given  set  of  symptoms  and  signs  of  dis- 
ease, it  was  almost  impossible  to  be  sure  just 
what  caused  them,  and,  consequently,  what 
was  best  to  do  for  the  patient.  When  the 
experimental  method  was  adopted  disease 
could  be  observed  systematically,  conditions 
could  be  controlled,  and  the  phenomena  that 
resulted  could  be  studied  intelligently  because 
the  experimenter  knew  exactly  what  had  pro- 
duced them.  In  such  experiments  mammals 
are  the  animals  chiefly  used,  because  in  most 
respects  they  most  nearly  resemble  man,  him- 
self a  mammal.  Practically  all  the  domestic 
mammals  have  been  used,  horses,  cattle,  sheep, 
goats,  swine,  dogs,  cats,  rabbits,  guinea- 
pigs,  and  rats  and  mice;  monkeys  are 
also  used.  And  all  have  made  wonderful 
contributions  to  medicine  or  surgery  or  both. 


Types    of   Experiments    on    Animals 

I 

There  are  several  classes  of  experiments. 
Some  are  in  the  field  of  pure  research,  not 
having  for  their  object  any  immediate  benefit 
to  man  or  animals.  Experiments  of  this  nature 
were  carried  on  some  years  ago  in  work  on 
bubonic  plague  among  rodents  in  California. 
It  was  discovered  that  ground  squirrels  have  a 
disease  similar  to  plague  and  yet  distinctly 
different.  By  a  long  series  of  experiments  it 
was  found  that  monkeys  are  susceptible  to 
this  disease,  and  it  was  predicted  that  eventu- 
ally cases  would  be  found  in  man.  As  a 
result  of  this  work  a  bacteriologist  in  Cincin- 
nati was  able  to  identify  the  disease  in  per- 
sons in  his  own  vicinity.  Another  investigator 
found  it  among  persons  in  Utah,  and  showed 
that  it  is  carried  from  infected  rabbits  and 
ground  squirrels  by  biting  insects.  It  also  was 
shown  that  the  disease  is  widespread  over 
the  United  States.  With  this  knowledge  of 
the  means  of  transmission  of  the  disease  it 
is  comparatively  easy  to  prevent  the  infection 
of    inan. 

II 

Another  class  of  experiments  is  carried  on 
by  surgeons  to  develop  dexterity  before  they 
attempt  operations  on  man.  Such  experiinents 
are  usually  carried  out  on  dogs.  The  animals 
are  invariably  under  complete  anesthesia  and 
usually  they  are  killed  by  added  ether  at  the 
end   of    the    experiment. 


6 

Recently  I  attended  the  clinic  of  a  throat 
specialist  in  the  east.  I  saw  child  after  child 
wheeled  into  the  amphitheatre  and  relieved, 
usually  in  a  few  moments,  of  foreign  bodies 
that  they  had  sucked  into  the  windpipe  and  that 


Does  this  dog  look  unhappy?  Ten  years  ago 
Buster  had  an  operation  performed  on  the  stomach; 
the  results  have  been  of  aid  in  the  study  of  digestion. 
Buster  has  not  suffered  thereby,  and  she  has  saved 
much  suffering  to  others.  She  is  receiving  a  visit 
from  the  author. 

a  few  years  ago  would  in  many  cases  have 
caused  death,  either  directly  or  as  the  result  of 
a  dangerous  operation.  So  dextrous  is  this  man 
that  his  little  patients  do  not  need  any  anes- 
thetic. After  his  work  was  done  I  had  a  talk 
with  him,  and  he  told  me  that  the  technic  of 


these  operations  had  been  worked  out  with 
great  care  on  dogs  that  were  always  under  an 
anesthetic.  He  also  told  me  that  by  the  use 
of  two  dogs  he  had  trained  fifty  other  men  to 
do   similar  work. 

Ill 

In  the  Civil  War  if  a  man  was  shot  through 
the  bowels,  he  was  doomed  to  death;  the  sur- 


This  is  Whitey,  about  eight  months  after  the  com- 
plete removal  of  the  parathyroid  glands.  These 
glands  are  quite  often  partly  and  accidentally  removed 
during  operations  on  the  thyroid  gland  in  man,  with 
alarming  and  sometimes  fatal  results.  Following  com- 
plete removal  of  the  parathyroid  glands,  carnivorous 
animals,  including  man,  die  within  from  four  to  six 
days.  As  a  result  of  experimental  work  on  this  dog 
and  other  animals,  three  effective  curative  measures 
have  been  developed,  which  indefinitely  preserve  the 
life  of  such  animals  in  normal  health.  Two  persons 
are  known  to  have  been  saved  and  several  others  have 
been  rendered  free  from  symptoms  as  a  result  of  this 
study. 


8 

geons  hardly  dared  to  open  the  abdomen  and 
if  they  did  they  didn't  know  how  to  join 
the  ends  of  the  bowel  so  that  it  would  not 
leak.  Of  course  the  slightest  leak  meant  infec- 
tion and  death.  Then  caine  along  an  experi- 
menter who  etherized  about  thirty  dogs,  shot 
them  through  the  bowels,   and  practiced  join- 


These  children  at  the  Anna  Durand  Hospital,  Chi- 
cago, have  been  saved  from  death  from  diphtheria  by 
the  use  of  antitoxin.  The  boy  in  the  center  has  a 
squint  as  the  result  of  his  sickness. 

ing  bowel  ends  until  he  could  make  a  perfect 
joint.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  in  the  World  War 
the  lives  of  thousands  of  men  were  saved  as  a 
result  of  that  series  of  experiments. 

Lockjaw,  tetanus,  chiefly  a  disease  of  war, 
that  threatened  to  take  frightful  toll  of  soldiers 
wounded  on  the  tetanus-infected  battlefields  of 


9 

Europe,  did  little  damage  during  the  late  war 
because  of  antitetanus  serum  made  from  the 
blood  of  immunized  horses.  Every  wounded 
man  received  an  injection  of  this  serum  at  the 
earliest  possible  moment,  and  usually  the 
length  of  time  that  had  intervened  determined 


The  homes  of  this  boy  and  girl  have  to  thank 
research  workers  and  animals  for  the  lives  saved  by 
antitoxin  for  diphtheria.  Without  antitoxin,  devel- 
oped by  experimental  work  on  animals,  such  children 
would  have  had  slim  chances  of  recovery. 

whether  the  man  would  live  or  whether  he 
would  die  a  most  distressing  and  horrible 
death. 

The  antityphoid  vaccine,  also  worked  out  on 
mammals  and  tested  on  mammals,  has  prac- 
tically abolished  typhoid  fever  in  soldiers' 
camps.       It     is     estimated     by     the     Surgeon 


10 

General's  office  that  during  the  World  War  it 
saved  the  lives  of  60,000  men  in  the  American 
army  alone. 

Benefits  of  Experimentation  to  Man 

These   are   only  a  very  few  examples  from 
the    long    list    of    benefits    that    have    accrued 


On  the  roof  garden  of  the  Home  for  Destitute 
Crippled  Children,  Chicago.  Suppose  one  of  these 
victims  of  infantile  paralysis  were  your  child?  Would 
you  hesitate  to  sacrifice  under  ether  one  or  more  ani- 
mals if  through  the  knowledge  gained  the  disease 
could  have  been  prevented,  or  your  child  could  have 
recovered  without  being  crippled? 

to  humanity  through  the  use  of  living  mam- 
mals for  experimental  purposes.  I  must  men- 
tion only  one  more — the  recent  discovery  of 
a  specific  treatment  for  diabetes.  Less  than 
two  years  ago  I  invited  a  little  girl  to  go  for 


11 

a  bird  walk  with  me  that  I  might  give  her 
the  pleasure  of  stroking  and  feeding  a  wild 
bird  in  its  nest.  I  was  particularly  eager  that 
she  should  enjoy  that  day,  because  both  she 
and  I  knew  that  she  had  not  many  days  to 
live.  She  was  doomed  to  die  of  diabetes 
within  six  months;  as  a  matter  of  fact  she  died 


Pacific   and    Atlantic 

Not  man  alone,  but  animals  also  have  benefited  by 
experimental  luork.  The  best  example  of  this  is  the 
conquest  of  hydrophobia. 

in  less  than  three  months  from  the  date  of  our 
walk,  I  remember  thinking  that  I  would  give 
anything  I  possessed  if  I  could  by  some 
miracle  restore  that  child  to  health.  Today, 
less  than  two  years  later,  that  miracle  could 
be  performed,  because  Dr.  F.  G.  Banting  of 
the  University  of  Toronto,  by  a  brilliant  series 


12 

of  experiments  on  dogs,  has  completed  investi- 
gations begun  on  rabbits  by  Claude  Bernard 
seventy-five  years  ago.  The  story  of  this 
wonderful  discovery  is  long,  but  here  are  the 
outstanding  facts.  It  was  found  that  when  the 
pancreas  of  a  dog  is  removed,  the  animal 
at  once  develops  acute  diabetes  and  usually 
dies  of  that  disease  within  three  or  four 
weeks.  Under  the  microscope  the  pancreas  is 
seen  to  be  studded  with  countless  little  bodies, 
known  as  the  islands  of  Langerhans,  after  the 
German  scientist  who  discovered  them.  It  was 
found  that  these  islands  secrete  a  substance 
quite  different  from  that  secreted  by  the  rest 
of  the  pancreas,  and  that  it  is  the  absence 
of  this  substance,  not  the  absence  of  the 
pancreas  itself,  that  causes  diabetes.  A  method 
was  devised  for  obtaining  an  extract  from 
these  islands  of  Langerhans,  and  it  was  found 
that  when  this  extract  was  injected  into  a 
dog  whose  pancreas  has  been  removed  it  did 
not  die,  but  got  well  and  continued  to  be  well 
as  long  as  it  was  given  injections  of  this 
extract.  After  these  injections  had  been  proved 
to  be  safe  by  repeated  experiments  on  dogs, 
they  were  tried  on  human  patients  with  start- 
lingly  beneficial  results.  Even  when  the  dis- 
ease is  of  long  standing,  when  the  patient  has 
reached  the  very  last  stage  and  is  in  the  coma 
that  immediately  precedes  death,  injections  of 
this  extract,  now  known  to  the  world  as 
insulin,  will  bring  him  out  of  the  coma,  snatch 
him  from  the  very  jaws  of  death,  and  restore 
him  to  health. 


13 

The  False  Stand  of  the  Antivivisectionists 

We  have  seen  that  all  these  great  advances 
in  medicine  and  surgery  have  been  made  as 
the  result  of  experiments  on  living  mammals, 
and  you  will  agree,  I  believe,  that  in  all  proba- 
bility further  advances  in  these  fields  must  be 
brought  about  by  the  same  means.  This  is  the 
opinion  of  practically  all  eminent  physicians 
and  surgeons  and  veterinarians,  and  of  all  the 
great  scientists  and  educators  in  other  fields — 
in  short,  it  is  the  opinion  of  all  persons  who 
have  vast  responsibilities  for  the  health  of 
men  and  of  animals.  The  only  persons  who 
are  opposed  to  these  reasonable  experiments 
are  the  antivivisectionists,  who  have  no  such 
responsibilities.  Would  any  sane  person  think 
of  going  to  the  antivivisectionists  for  help  if 
there  were  an  epidemic  of  smallpox  or  diph- 
theria, or  if  there  were  an  outbreak  of  hog 
cholera  or  of  blackleg  in  cattle?  We  don't  go 
to  them  because  they  know  nothing  about  such 
matters.  Yet  they  boldly  contradict  all  com- 
petent authorities  and  tell  us  that  experiments 
on  animals  are  useless,  that  they  have  never 
accomplished  anything.  The  antivivisection 
societies  are  composed  largely  of  well  disposed 
but  woefully  misinformed  persons.  And  those 
who  are  responsible  for  the  misinformation 
are  the  leaders  of  the  antivivisectionists.  I 
have  been  studying  these  leaders  for  some 
years,  and  I  may  say,  without  any  danger  of 
my  statements  being  disproved,  that  among 
them  may  be  found  many  of  the  most  danger- 


14 

ous  of  the  criminal  insane  to  be  found  in  this 
country  today — and  I  have  recently  visited 
some  of  our  largest  penitentiaries  and  asylums. 
I  have  found  some  of  these  leaders  of  the 
antivivisection  movement  to  be  guilty  of  false- 
hood, slander,  libel,  perjury,  forgery,  and 
attempted  bribery.  Under  false  pretenses  they 
obtain  money  from  weakminded  and  unthink- 
ing people  and,  with  this  money,  they  wilfully 
and  perennially  attempt  not  only  to  prevent 
the  advance  of  medicine  and  surgery,  but 
also  to  break  down  the  bulwarks  of  preventive 
medicine  by  teaching  contempt  of  vaccination 
and  of  the  use  of  antitoxins. 

Few  of  the  criminals  in  our  jails  are 
responsible  for  the  deaths  of  more  than  a 
small  number  of  persons;  few  of  them  have 
attempted  widespread  destruction  of  life.  But 
it  is  the  opinion  of  eminent  physicians  that 
through  the  pernicious  teachings  of  the  anti- 
vivisection  leaders  we  shall  in  a  few  years 
have  epidemics  that  will  destroy  the  lives  of 
many  thousands  of  children.  Unless  we  wish 
for  a  return  of  the  plagues  and  pestilences  that 
once  devastated  wide  areas  on  this  world 
before  the  introduction  of  modern  methods, 
we  should  use  every  means  in  our  power  to 
discourage  these  dangerous  fanatics.  I  believe 
that  it  is  the  duty  of  all  good  citizens  who 
belong  to  antivivisection  societies  to  send  in 
their  resignations  at  once,  and  to  stand  with 
our  government,  our  great  physicians,  sur- 
geons, veterinarians,  agriculturalists,  educators. 


15 

and  divines  in  approving  and  supporting 
properly  conducted  animal  experimentation 
and  sane  humane  education  generally. 

After  the  presentation  of  this  paper  by  Mr.  Baynes 
before  the  American  Society  of  Mammalogists,  at  its 
fifth  annual  meeting,  May  15  to  17,  1923,  in  the 
Academy  of  Natural  Sciences,  Philadelphia,  the  Society 
unanimously  passed  these  resolutions: 

Whereas,  It  is  a  fact  known  to  all  thinking  people 
that  most  of  the  great  advances  in  medicine  and  sur- 
gery have  been  made  as  a  result  of  experiments  on 
living  animals,  especially  mammals,  and 

Whereas,  It  is  the  belief  of  our  eminent  physicians, 
surgeons,  and  veterinarians,  and  all  others  having 
great  responsibility  for  the  health  of  human  beings 
and  of  animals,  that  future  advances  in  these  fields 
will  be  made  chiefly  as  the  result  of  similar  experi- 
ments, and 

Whereas,  It  is  known  that  these  experiments  almost 
invariably  are  conducted  humanely  and  with  a  mini- 
mum of  discomfort  to  the  animals  used,  and 

Whereas,  There  is  an  organized  movement  being 
carried  on  by  certain  misinformed  and  misguided 
individuals  who  seek  to  prevent  or  seriously  interfere 
with  such  experiments,  be  it 

Resolved,  that  we,  members  of  the  American  Society 
of  Mammalogists,  in  annual  convention  assembled  in 
the  city  of  Philadelphia,  on  the  sixteenth  day  of  May, 
1923,  are  of  opinion  that,  in  the  best  interests  of  real 
humanity,  animal  experimentation,  including  vivisec- 
tion, as  practiced  in  our  laboratories  today,  should 
continue  unhampered. 


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